is there a way to get the final object space normal (with normal maps applied)
its very simple, the normalmap output in tangent mode does exactly what i was looking for, i was being dumb, i had refactored my node networks into a bunch of nested groups and one of the inputs had set the normal intput to a float instead of a vector...
it took me to recreate the entire normal tbn matrix in nodes and debug the out put vs the normalmap node to realise ;)